WELL BEFORE the 2001 general election, senior officials at the Home Office were aware that David Blunkett was to be Jack Straw’s replacement. I regretted Jack’s departure; he had been an exceptionally supportive Home Secretary, genuinely interested in rehabilitation. After appointing me as Director-General of the Prison Service in 1998, he had obtained very significant new funding and allowed me dramatically to increase drug treatment and education in prisons.
But, nevertheless, along with the rest of the senior team at the Home Office, I welcomed David’s appointment and anticipated a smooth handover. That was to prove to be optimistic. David’s suspicion of senior officials was immediately apparent and the relationship between ministers (and their special advisers) and officials swiftly declined. I learnt, and quickly, that David was dismissive of anything that might have been achieved at the Home Office before his arrival.
Over time, things improved, not least because John Gieve, the Permanent Secretary, replaced almost the whole of his senior team. Of those there when David arrived in 2001, I was to be the only survivor two years later. But despite that, my relationship with David was not good and although it improved toward the end of his time at the Home Office, I found him always to be unpredictable and inclined to rush to a decision, sometimes on the basis of what had been read to him that morning from the tabloid press. And when under pressure, he could be almost impossible to work with. But it was not until he was tested with his only prison riot that I concluded that he was not up to the job.
David’s diary account of the riot at Lincoln in October 2002 is fascinating. It was clearly not written at the time because he refers to me as being in overall charge of corrections (prisons and probation), a position not invented at the time of the riot and one I was not to take up until 2003. So his version of what happened that night might owe something to a bit of post-event rationalisation. But whatever the reason, David insists that I dithered over the riot, and had he not been Home Secretary, the riot might have spread to other prisons. His immodest summary was that it was his grasp of history and his memory of the Strangeways riot of 1989 that was the significant factor on resolving the crisis at Lincoln. My account of that night is somewhat different. I did not keep a diary while running prisons, but I was sufficiently disturbed by David’s behaviour during the crisis to take notes at the time.
I was on the Isle of Wight, about to begin a series of visits to the three prisons there. As was my habit on the evening before such visits, and along with Roy Webster, my staff and press officer, I took the three prison governors to dinner. While the five of us were enjoying a curry in Cowes, Phil Wheatley (now the director-general of prisons but then my deputy) phoned me to tell me that there was a serious disturbance at Lincoln and that staff had had to retreat from the prison. We agreed that he would take personal charge of the incident, I would return to London and that staff already manning the incident room in Prison Service headquarters would tell ministers.
Riots had been almost commonplace in the Eighties and Nineties. This was the first since my appointment and the only significant disturbance during my seven years running prisons. It was the only big crisis in prisons with which David had to deal, notorious escapes also being a thing of the past. Had David possessed a real grasp of history, that good fortune would have been uppermost in his mind.
Although this was the first riot we had faced for some years, we had well-tested contingency arrangements in place. And I was comforted first by the fact that Phil — hugely able in a crisis — was on his way to take command of the incident room and, secondly, that I knew Dick Peacock, the governor of Lincoln, to be able and courageous.
I was about to leave the restaurant when I got a call from Kath Raymond, David’s political adviser. I thought that this would be to convey a message of support from the Home Secretary. Instead, a flustered Kath told me that the Home Secretary was furious and said I was to call him at home.
David was certainly furious. He was also hysterical. He directed me, without delay, to order staff back into the prison. I told him that we did not, at that time, have enough staff in the prison to contemplate such a move but that many more staff were on their way from other prisons. I insisted, however, that although I was determined to take the prison back as quickly as possible, I could not, and would not, risk staff or prisoner lives in attempting to do so. He shrieked at me that he didn’t care about lives, told me to call in the Army and “machine-gun” the prisoners. He then ordered me to take the prison back immediately. I refused. David hung up.
I do not pretend not to have been flustered by this outburst, which he surely cannot have intended us to take seriously, but I attempted to remain calm, not least because I was still at the restaurant table and my staff had heard most of the exchange. One, now the governor of one of Britain’s biggest jails, and clearly deeply shocked, said simply: “Did he really say he didn’t care about lives . . .?” Minutes later, Jonathan Sedgwick, David’s private secretary, phoned me and, more diplomatically, repeated that the Home Secretary wanted me to order staff back into the prison immediately. I told Jonathan I would not do so, acknowledged that I was ignoring a direct order from the Secretary Of State and said that I understood that I might have to resign the next morning. I travelled back to London convinced that I was in the last few hours of my director-generalship.
I was buoyed, however, by a typically warm and supportive call from John Gieve, who promised to do all he could to handle David and told me that I had to follow my professional judgment and agreed, without hesitation, that the preservation of life had to be the first priority.
In fact the contingency arrangements we had in place worked well. Staff arrived in large numbers and as quickly as the remote location of Lincoln allowed. And, anxious to protect the lives of vulnerable prisoners, who we thought might be attacked by those rioting, Wheatley and Peacock had the prison back under control before dawn.
David phoned me about seven in the morning — by which time I was leaving London to travel to Lincoln to thank the staff, something David should have done with me — and warmly congratulated me on bringing the disturbance to an end. The hysteria of the previous evening and my ignoring his order was forgotten.
Other than recording the events, privately, to John Gieve I have never before made this sad episode public. But I cannot allow David’s version of events to go unchallenged. Too many people worked tirelessly and courageously that night to bring events at Lincoln to a swift and relatively peaceful conclusion. David’s was the only performance that was wanting.
Martin Narey was Permanent Secretary at the Home Office and Director-General of the Prison Service.
